Life is Short and Desire Endless

April 16, 2012
An appealing oddness of language elevates Lapeyre’s English-language debut above the standard love triangle story. Louis Bleriot-Ringuet, known as Blériot, is French; Nora Neville is English; Murphy Blomdale is American. Murphy works in finance, and Blériot, married to Sabine, works as a translator but often relies on his parents, friends, and wife for money. Nora, who takes acting classes, is “a strange, fairly unstable girl... both sassy and oddly taciturn,” in Murphy’s view. They live together in London until Nora moves to Paris and begins an affair with Blériot. Murphy misses her terribly, finds little satisfaction at work, and visits a childhood friend of Nora’s to gain insight into Nora’s character. In Paris, Nora finds work in a hotel and continues her affair with Blériot, but the attendant complications, including Sabine’s growing suspicions, bring Nora to miss Murphy, setting in motion events that will change the lives of all involved. With the exception of a postmodern turn late in the narrative, Lapeyre’s novel, winner of the 2010 Prix Femina, engaging though it is, won’t take readers anywhere they haven’t been before.

June 1, 2012
One need look no further than the apt title to uncover the frustrations of the two main male characters. At one point in the novel one of Nora Neville's lovers wonders whether "she secretes an active substance when she comes in contact with men, one that singlehandedly makes them fall at her feet," and after a brief acquaintance, the reader is persuaded that this is an accurate depiction of her singular powers. Although she's reputed to have many lovers, Lapeyre focuses on two: Murphy Blomdale, an American businessman living in London, and Louis Bleriot, a hapless Parisian even more desperately in love with the elusive and provocative Nora. Bleriot is a translator, and when the novel opens he hasn't heard from Nora for two long and anguished years, but he gets a phone call--fortuitously on Ascension Day--and they rekindle their relationship. Although Blomdale had been sharing an apartment with Nora, Bleriot is more secretive and constrained, of necessity because he's married to Sabine, a French intellectual in whom he's lost interest since his introduction to the alluring Nora. Bleriot can be either ecstatic or miserable in her company, depending on how capricious she happens to be at a given moment, while Blomdale is a bit more circumspect--but still generally miserable. Eventually Bleriot and Blomdale meet--almost accidentally--in London when Bleriot can't stand his life without Nora anymore (and not so coincidentally finds his marriage falling apart) and so goes to London to seek out some of her old haunts. Lapeyre writes with great wit and sly craft on the miseries of unfulfilled relationships.

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